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Purity (Large Print / Hardcover)

Staff Reviews

If Franzen's earlier novels showed that all unhappy families are dissimilar, then Purity goes a step further in the 21st Century to show that the nature of the post-middle class family and individual identity are even more of a mystery. Franzen has fun putting his characters into misery again, but this time they have a bit more free will than he normally affords them as they struggle in a larger, perhaps more political landscape. Pip, who is burdened with crushing college debt and haunted by not knowing the identity of her father, leaves her bullshit job selling fake green energy scams to unwitting consumers, and instead follows a path into the hacker world and investigative reporting. And Andreas Wolf is a charismatic hacker who steals the secrets of others while harboring his own. Wolf navigates two separate totalitarian worlds: first in East Germany before the fall, and then later traversing the landscape created by today's massive tech companies. It all makes for a darkly comic, compelling novel. Oh, and there's a missing nuclear warhead, too.